A special issue of Biophysical Reviews dedicated to the 20th IUPAB (virtual) Congress “in” Foz do Iguaçu

The 20th IUPAB Congress took place online, together with the annual meetings of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, from the 4th to the 8th of October, 2021. The ten keynote lectures, 24 symposia, two poster sessions, and a series of technical seminars covered the full diversity of current biophysical research and its interfaces with other fields. The event had over 1000 attendees, with an excellent gender balance. Although the Americas dominated, there were also significant numbers of participants from Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) came into existence in Stockholm in 1961 and has been a member of the International Science Council since 1966 (Solomon 1968). Its overall objectives aim to foster international collaboration in all aspects of biophysics and related areas and to catalyze the advancement of basic biophysical research as well as its many applications. Although IUPAB is active on many fronts, undeniably one of its showcase events is the IUPAB Congress, traditionally organized every three years in different locations worldwide. In 2021, the event was organized and run from Brazil, albeit for the very first time in a virtual format due to travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. On this occasion, the Congress was organized in conjunction with the annual meetings of both the Brazilian Biophysical Society (SBBf, in its 45th edition) and the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq, in its 50th edition). Even with the united forces of these well-established local societies, it turned out to be a bumpy ride to bring the event to fruition.Plans for the 20th Congress began in 2016, almost immediately after the decision to hold the event in Brazil, a cause championed by the then-president of the Brazilian Biophysical Society, Marcelo Morales. The original plans had the meeting to be held in the Cidade Maravilhosa (The Wonderful City) of Rio de Janeiro in October 2020. However, it soon became apparent that the political and economic difficulties that the State of Rio was facing at the time meant that it would be wise to search for an alternative venue. The previous experience of SBBq in organizing similar events in the city of Foz do Iguaçu, on the borders with Argentina and Paraguay, made this an obvious choice. Furthermore, the natural attraction of the spectacular Iguaçu waterfalls seemed to be an ideal compensation for Sugar Loaf Mountain, Copacabana beach, and the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain.Then came the pandemic. By mid-2020, it had become apparent that there were too many unknowns to make it possible to proceed with an in-person event in October of that year. It was decided to postpone the congress to 2021 but with a firm belief that things would be “back to normal.” Sweet delusion! As 2020 turned into 2021 and the severity and longevity of the pandemic became clearer and clearer (not to mention the abysmal performance of the Brazilian government in failing to rise to the challenge), the inevitable decision was taken to transform the event into an “on-line” congress. This was a first for both the local organizers and the IUPAB.The move to an online format immediately had an impact on the organization of the Young Scientist Program. This was initially envisaged to be a combination of formal and informal activities aimed at uniting about 40 early carrier scientists and post-docs for a couple of days prior to the main event in a stimulating atmosphere conducive to networking. Skillfully conceived, organized, and executed by Eneida de Paula (Campinas) and Eduardo Reis (São Paulo), this too had to be adapted to a “virtual reality.” The successful solution turned out to be a series of fortnightly thematic webinars, including a talk from a recognized authority in the field followed by three or four short presentations from the participants themselves (Table ​(Table1).1). The standard was extremely high and the YSP ended up being a highly effective warm-up to the congress itself. Furthermore, there was excellent geographical diversity among the participants with Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and both North and South America represented.Table 1Young Scientist Webinar Program

Date	General subject area	Invited speaker
19th May	Biomimetic Structures and Systems/Multiscale Biophysics of Membranes	Manuel Prieto, Portugal
26th May	Cell Biophysics and Phase Transition	Clifford Brangwynne, USA
9th June	Plant biotechnology/Biofuels/Bioenergy	Igor Polikarpov, Brazil
23rd June	Applications in Biomedical and Materials Science	–
7th July	Mechanisms of Membrane Protein	Natalie Strynadka, Canada
21st July	Membrane Permeation: Channels and Transporters	Eduardo Perozo, USA
4th August	Bioenergetics and Metabolism	Alicia Kowaltowski, Brazil
18th August	Protein Structure to Function/Structural Biology	Wah Chiu, USA
1st September	Computational Biophysics and Biochemistry	Ingemar André, Sweden
15th September	Drug Discovery and Delivery	Fabio Sonvico, Italy

Open in a separate windowThe main event attracted over 1000 participants, with an excellent gender balance. Although the Americas dominated, there were also significant numbers of participants from Europe, Asia, and Africa (Fig. 1). Table ​Table22 gives an excellent idea of the diverse subject matter covered during the 5 days of the congress itself. As to be expected, the way in which biophysics naturally interfaces with biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, chemistry (including medicinal chemistry), physics, engineering, etc. was more than apparent. Nevertheless, several themes appeared to be particularly recurrent throughout the event. Notwithstanding the plethora of other topics, several main threads permeated the proceedings, and these included (1) lipids, membranes, their assembly, and dynamics; (2) bioimaging at all levels; (3) drug targets and drug development/delivery; and (4) molecular recognition including membrane/protein interactions. This special issue aims to cover the main topics of the event as comprehensively as possible in similar vein to previous efforts (Hall and dos Remedios, 2017). In over 50 articles, including reviews, commentaries, letters, and editorials, we aim to convey the full flavor of the congress. It is hoped that this will serve simultaneously as both a useful source of reference and a historical record. The short, focused review articles are all up-to-date and expected to be of particular value to a broad readership. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we have and find them to be instructive and beneficial.Open in a separate windowFig. 1Participants by continentTable 2Symposia organized during the 20th IUPAB Congress

Title	Chair
Drug design and delivery	Joke Bouwstra (Leiden, Netherlands)
Protein Structure, Dynamics and Function	Richard Garratt (São Carlos, Brazil)
Biological Photosensors and their Applications in Optogenetics	Silvia Braslavsky (MPI, Germany)
Macromolecular Machines and Switching Devices	Alejandro Buschiazzo (Montevideo, Uruguay)
RSC–Chemical Biology	Randall Peterson (Utah, USA)
Young Talent in Life Sciences (Cytiva Award)	Juliana Fietto (Viçosa, Brazil)
Deforming Membranes	Patricia Bassereau (Curie Institute, France)
Systems Biology and Biomarkers for Human Disorders	Peter Nilson (KTH, Stockholm, Sweden)
PABMB Symposium: Metabolism and Bioenergetics	Alicia Kowaltowski (São Paulo, Brazil)
Biophotonics	Georg Wondrak/Martha Ribeiro (Arizona, USA/São Paulo, Brazil)
Microbiomes: human and environmental	Leda Vieira (Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
Molecular and Cell Imaging	Paulo Bisch (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Ionic Channels and Membrane Transporters	John Baenziger (Chicago, USA)
Biomolecular Association and Dynamics	Paul Whitford (Boston, USA)
Gender in Science	Cristina Nonato/David Crossman (Ribeirão Preto, Brazil/Aukland, New Zealand)
Protein Folding, Misfolding and Unfolding	Vladimir Uversky (Tampa, USA)
EBSA Symposium on Translational Biophysics	Anthony Watts/Jesús Pérez-Gil (Oxford, UK/Madrid, Spain)
Autophagy: Mechanisms and Applications	Marcelo Mori (Campinas, Brazil)
Membrane Simulation	Mikko Karttunen (Ontario, Canada)
Systems Biologics: at the interface…	Stephen Michnick (Montreal, Canada)
IUBMB Symposium: Science Education	Manuel João Costa (U. Minho, Portugal)
Scissioning Membranes	Rumiana Dimova (Potsdam, Germany)
Redox Biology	Rafael Radi (Montevideo, Uruguay)
Biophysics of the Immune System	Jean-Marie Ruysschaert (Brussels, Belgium)

Open in a separate windowAll of the Keynote lectures (Table ​(Table3)3) were very well attended. The Nobel laureate Richard Henderson set the ball rolling with a beautifully clear historical overview of how cryo-EM got to be where it is now and what we might expect for the near future. Tony Watts (the new president-elect of IUPAB) closed the event with the Avanti/IUPAB award lecture and a clear message that biophysics is not all about proteins—lipids are important (also)! Midweek, a second Nobel prize winner, Michael Levitt, gave his take on the COVID-19 pandemic by applying his talent for mathematical modeling in much the same way as he so successfully applied it to macromolecular systems in the past. At the very least, his talk gave plenty of food for thought to those who were present.Table 3Keynote speakers

Speaker	Title
Richard Henderson (LMB, Cambridge)	Impact of Single Particle Cryo-electron Microscopy on Structural Biology
Carlos Bustamante (University of California, Berkeley)	Co-temporal Force and Fluorescence Measurements Reveal a Ribosomal Gear-shift Mechanism of Translation Regulation by mRNA Secondary Structures
Giorgio Trinchieri (Center for Cancer Research, NIH, Maryland)	Targeting the microbiome in cancer immunotherapy
Tao Xu (Chinese Academy of Sciences)	The Bei Shizhang Lecture: Cryogenic superresolution correlative light and electron microscopy on the frontier od subcellular imaging
Michael Levitt (Stanford)	Lessons from 620 days Studying COVID-19
Ohara Augusto (São Paulo)	Carbon Dioxide Redox Metabolites in Eustress and Oxidative Distress
Ramon Latorre (Valparaíso)	Calcium-driven Voltage Sensingand the role of Charged Residues in the voltage sensor domain of BK
Angela Gronenborn (Pittsburgh)	The Awesome Power of Fluorine NMR
Yoav Shechtman (Haifa)	IUPAB Young Investigator Lecture: Next Generation Localization Microscopy—or How and Why to Ruin and Perfectly Good Microscope
Anthony Watts (Oxford)	Avanti/IUPAB Award Lecture: Lipids are important

Open in a separate windowOverall, the sessions were very well attended with typically over 200 participants. The ease of moving from one session to another under the virtual format proved to be a notable advantage. Furthermore, since many of the talks were pre-recorded, most of the sessions kept to time rather better than is often the case at traditional events. The two poster sessions were also very well frequented, and the pre-recorded videos were generally of high quality. Approximately 10% of all poster presenters were awarded prizes during the closing ceremony, and six special prizes were generously provided by the Royal Society of Chemistry.Several special activities were held throughout the week. These included technical seminars by some of the sponsors, including Cytiva, Thermo-Fisher, and Sartorius as well as sessions devoted to Brazil-German exchange programs and one on “Gender in Science.” The latter was particularly motivational for the congress participants, whose demographic was heavily biased towards early-career scientists, post-docs, and students (Fig. 2). Biophysical Reviews organized two early-morning sessions, one of which was an editorial board meeting whilst the other was open to all interested parties and represented an opportunity to promote the journal within the community. The IUPAB held its general assembly on the 6th of October. Manuel Prieto formally took over as President with Marcelo Morales stepping down but continuing as a council member in the role of immediate Past President. Tony Watts becomes the new President Elect.Open in a separate windowFig. 2The distribution of participants according to their stage in the careerDespite the challenges of organizing a widely diverse international event online, we came away with the feeling of a mission accomplished and the hope that we will be able to meet up in person in the very near future. From the extremely high standard of the presentations and the overall satisfaction of the participants, we think it can be considered to have been a success. See you all in Kyoto!